


vengeance has consumed you

by orangeink



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mostly Erik POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 08:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeink/pseuds/orangeink
Summary: T'Challa has seen the devastation vengeance has wrought before. He tries to warn Erik, but Erik ain't the type to listen: He's got a throne to claim.





	vengeance has consumed you

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Black Panther and it was gorgeous and then I wrote this in a few hours. Enjoy!

**vengeance has consumed you**

“What do you want?”

“I want the throne.”

Erik, son of an outcast, murdered prince, stands across from T’Challa, son of a king who lied and killed his own brother and abandoned his nephew to the tumultuous, cruel ways of the outside world.

The throne is behind T’Challa, a marvel of obsidian and vibranium-laced stone. Erik’s skin tingles to look at it: the physical representation of his lifelong goal and the salvation of his people. There is a plethora of obstacles between him and the seat of power—generals in red, queens in white, various advisors dressed in a rainbow of colors, a scattering of guards—but Erik knows the only real threat is the man before him.

T’Challa, the Black Panther and supposed King of Wakanda. Son of T’Chaka. Erik’s cousin. By rights, they should have been raised together, if not as brothers, then at the very least as friends. But the world ain’t kind that way. She prefers to grind folks under her heel, and Erik got the short end of the stick. Growing up alone in the projects while T’Challa grew up surrounded by attendants and kin who loved him taught Erik that the strongest survive.

And he ain’t convinced that T’Challa is strong. Sure, he’s got the build, the blessing of the Panther lurking under his skin like a shadow, but his eyes kind of ruin the image of strong stoic son-of-a-bitch (only a little offense meant, Auntie Ramonda).

Dark eyes, like Erik’s, but softer in some way. The light hits them differently, makes them luminescent, ethereal in a way that makes Erik uncomfortable.

He’s seen those eyes hard with determination to capture Klaue, seen them shatter when T’Challa caught sight of the ring proudly displayed on Erik’s breastplate when he snatched the Panther’s prey out from under him. But now, here in this throne room where Erik has just thrown down the gauntlet, those eyes are missing something.

(Erik thinks it’s hatred, that thing he’s been staring at in the mirror for the past twenty-odd years.)

He wants to think that lack of something is his ticket to being able to definitively say T’Challa is weak. But from the way T’Challa is looking back at him without flinching, the way he is rising to his feet and striding forward to meet the outsider that intends to kill him head-on like it’s nothing—

“I am going to tell you something I told another man not long ago,” T’Challa says, slow and even.

—Erik thinks maybe the King isn’t content to roll over and surrender yet. “Oh yeah?” he lifts his chin. “Bring it.”

T’Challa’s eyes are dark with something else Erik has seen in the mirror but will never admit to: sadness.

“Vengeance has consumed you.”

T’Challa says it like it’s something that breaks his heart, and Erik smiles with all his teeth, “No shit, cuz.”

“You can still stop this,” T’Challa says softly, steady as the vibranium mountain he’s been sitting on all his life. “There are other ways.”

Erik thinks of his father’s corpse going cold in his skinny arms a lifetime ago, thinks of the spaceship lights and vibranium claws that stole his father’s life. Erik stops smiling, “Nah, man. This is the only way.”

“Very well,” T’Challa says, holding Erik’s stare. “I accept your challenge.”

*

Later, when Erik stabs the shaman ( _Uncle James_ , a voice in him whispers), he sees T’Challa’s eyes shatter again, the grief and helpless rage a gaping wound that echoes what Erik saw in the mirror the morning after the cops came and took his father’s body away.

Those dark eyes are still soft, still lacking that something even as Erik hauls their owner to the edge of the falls and pitches him over.

_Your father was murdered too_ , Erik thinks, watching his cousin’s body plummet out of sight. _Don’t pretend to be so fucking high and mighty. You know what vengeance is._

Then he turns to claim his throne, shoulders thrown back, blood singing in his veins, and thinks: _The strongest survive._

*

Erik never sees those eyes dead, never sees them glassy and blank. The next time he sees them, they’re burning into him from across a field of smoldering wreckage.

“The challenge isn’t over yet,” the general in red hisses, something fierce in her voice, but Erik does not concern himself with her, focuses only on his cousin who approaches from the smoke like some kind of savior (like some kind of _avenger_ ). The determination, the steadiness that makes up for the lack of that something in T’Challa’s eyes makes Erik sneer.

_Bring it_ , he thinks, mind focused on the only true threat to the throne even as he fights off the red guard that should be loyal to him but is not. _Vengeance waits, cuz. I’ll do it right this time._

But the world won’t let him have even that: she rips away his chance at retribution with the spear that slides between his ribs and pierces his heart.

Erik chokes on the blood welling up in his throat and stares at T’Challa, who is staring back like the world is taking something from him, too. Erik forces himself to laugh, ignores how hollowly it rings in this mountain-sized coffin of vibranium, “I guess this is what you meant by vengeance, huh?”

*

“We might be able to save you,” T’Challa says, when they are kneeling side-by-side and staring at the Wakandan sunset, the first and last Erik has ever seen.

Erik’s vision is going gray at the edges. He makes sure he’s looking T’Challa in the eyes when he pulls the spear from his chest.

“Bury me in the ocean,” he says, sees the promise crystalize in T’Challa’s dark eyes as his cousin nods. Erik slumps to the side, coming to rest on vibranium that hums in time with his labored heartbeats. His whole life was dedicated to killing the man next to him, to claiming vengeance on those who wronged his father and abandoned him.

Erik stares at the sun as his fingers go cold. Darkness falls on him before the sun sinks below the horizon.

*

T’Challa brushes the lids of Erik’s sightless eyes closed and bites his lip bloody as he lays the body out, arms crossed over the chest scarred with the remnants of dozens of lives taken in cold blood.

As the sun sets, T’Challa grieves.

**Author's Note:**

> First off, I love complex characters.
> 
> Second, as you may have noticed, I saw a lot of parallels between Erik and Zemo in the sense that they sought to destroy the world to avenge their families. I think T'Challa would have felt an uncomfortable sense of deja-vu watching the vicious way Erik was trying to enact change. Thus, this story was born.
> 
> Third, I hope you enjoyed this story. I wrote it partially in tribute to T'Challa and Erik's complex relationship. I also wrote it because I'm tired of a lot of fandom portraying T'Challa as kind of weak/submissive when he is in fact a strong, soulful badass.


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